


The nights were meant for stealing things you can't have in the daylight

by Teatrolley



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person, confused idiots are very much in love, they're simply very bad at figuring it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 08:59:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4870933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teatrolley/pseuds/Teatrolley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He finds your scars the next morning, and all the words are there, loud and confronting and terrible, but afterwards John makes you a cup of tea and lets your fingers touch, and at night he goes to your bed again, and none of you talk about it. When he wakes up screaming you kiss the sound out of him, and all it is, is comfort.</p><p>_________________</p><p>John moves back in at 221B, and they're bad at dealing and talking, but somehow it's easier when it happens at night</p>
            </blockquote>





	The nights were meant for stealing things you can't have in the daylight

When it finally happens, it doesn’t happen in any way that you’d ever imagined it would. In your mind there had been crying and confessions and a lot of weight, and while that does come, it comes later. 

In the beginning it’s just John on your doorstep, bags in his hands, and then a second inhabitant again. It’s not the same, but you never really expected it to be, so you’re simply happy to be able to be around him again. You forgot the look of John dishevelled and sleepy in the morning, but you swear you never will again; the stars that John points out can’t compare.

He screams at night, and the sound of it will cut to your bones and make them quiver, but you won’t do anything about it, because how can you? Your hands have done so much hurting, and your words have caused so much pain, so how could any of those possibly be used for good now? But you’ll lie in bed at night and stare at the ceiling where John’s tossing makes the floorboards creak. In the morning you go on cases and pretend that things aren’t paper-thin and fragile and at the verge of breaking at any provocation. 

But you’ll be sitting one night in the living room, and it will be three am when John comes downstairs, and you’re there this time. Your silence have been founded entirely on pretence, of ignorance, of not caring, but now you’re looking all the ugly in the eye, because your eyes meet and silence is no longer an option.

“What do you dream about?” you ask, because there’s no use beating around the bush now. John will sink into his own chair, and you’ll be reminded of the times he wasn’t there, and think that you can live with any pain as long as John stays.

“You.”

You will understand, because your dreams are quiet and paralysing, but they’re the same. There are hands and triggers and blood and a lot of empty rooms and corners, but in the end all there is, is John; not there.

You’ll apologize, and while you don’t see how it could, it will change things. You’ll talk, and sometimes you won’t, but things will be better, except on the few nights when they’re not. But when they come around you’ll be there now, more often, in the kitchen with him, and you’ll say words that are forbidden when the light comes on: “I don’t know how to fix things.” “I have the dreams, too.” “All I ever did, I did to keep you safe.”

When you say the last thing he sighs shakily and closes his eyes. You don’t say anything else that night, but when you go to bed he joins you, and you fall asleep with his hand on your forearm and something mending somewhere down deep in your chest.

He finds your scars the next morning, and all the words are there, loud and confronting and terrible, but afterwards John makes you a cup of tea and lets your fingers touch, and at night he goes to your bed again, and none of you talk about it. When he wakes up screaming you kiss the sound out of him, and all it is, is comfort.

Half a year passes, and you don’t talk about it, but you talk about everything else. You don’t sleep together every night, but when you do and you dream, he kisses you, and you do the same. John settles in and gets a job, he rejects girls, and he invites Lestrade over for football games. You never ever kiss in daylight, but he sometimes holds your hands, and it’s all confusing and strange and a little bit terrifying, but you make do because you don’t dare ask for more. 

Until one night you can’t. You don’t know how long it’s been, or what time it is when you lie in your bed alone and make the most frightening decision you’ve made in your life. The stairway is cold under your bare feet, but John’s bed is warm when you crawl into it without saying a word.

“Mmm hey,” he grumbles, and his sleepiness makes it easier to ask the question.

“Can I touch you?”

He raises himself on his elbows and look at you when what you’ve said sinks in, but he must see something in your eyes, because all he does is nod before lying back down and letting you.

So you touch him, in all of the ways that you’ve never been able to, and in all of the places you’ve wanted to since the first time you saw him. You run a finger over his eyebrow and down his nose. You rest your fingertips on his lips, and run them over his wrist. You kiss his stomach, circle his nipple and touch his neck. His fingers end up inside your mouth, and the blood ends up pumping through your veins, speeding faster than you can breathe. John lets you do it all, keeping his eyes on your face like he’s more interested in that than anything else that’s going on. He doesn’t stop you before you try to touch him between his legs.

“No,” he whispers, so you stop it all, and let him grab your wrist in its descent. You expect a lot of things, including anger or disgust, but you don’t expect him to bring your hand to his face and kiss it, and you don’t expect him to kiss you, but he does.

“I’m not shutting you down,” he whispers into your cheek, “I’m just pausing.”

“Okay,” you say, and your voice breaks, but he kisses you nevertheless and then he holds you tight in his arms for the entirety of the hours it takes you to finally calm down your heart and fall asleep. 

 

In all of this, through all of this time, you’ve rarely woken up together. It’s been too much to look at what happens at night in the daylight, and out in the open. All the dusty corners and spider webs become illuminated, and it’s too hard to look at. But this morning when you wake up, John is still there, awake and reading next to you. When he sees your eyes open he smiles in a way that makes you feel like you could carve out your red, pulsing heart and present it in an art museum as “The effects of John Watson on an empty man”.

“Hey,” he whispers to you, and he doesn’t let you go, or kick you out, but lies down next to you and touch your nose like it’s carved out of marble by an antique sculptor and is worthy of a million praises. You feel a little like crying.

“I want to talk.”

John brings it on the table just like that, and in an instance not talking becomes impossible and you wonder how you’ve gone on for this long without it.

“Okay,” you agree. This doesn’t mean that you know what to say, or how to phrase it, but you know that you can’t keep it bottled up anymore. When it comes down to it, being honest is surprisingly easy.

“I don’t want us to do this for any other reason than you wanting us to do it,” John says. “No guilt or shame or fear of me leaving should be the reason, and we shouldn’t do it if you feel like you have to or if you want to as an apology.”

“If I said I wanted to, would it be too much? Would you leave, then?” you ask.

“I tried to chat you up on our first night together,” John says, and you smile into the back of your hand despite your heart sitting in your throat.

“I’ve hurt you a lot since,” you remind him.

“And I’ve forgiven you,” John says, and then: “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. But I am tired. I need us to stop dancing around each other.” 

You discover that you’re crying when he asks you if he can kiss you, and your voice breaks when you reply, “In the daylight?”

He lets his lips be the answer.

 

Having sex with John is better than you could have ever imagined, and talking everything out over the next couple of weeks hurts a lot more than you were prepared for, but in the end it’s all fine, and when you, after weeks of sorting your emotions out, finally get to the “I love you” you decide that the look on John’s face is worth everything you’ve been through twice over and more. When you hear it back you know why people would die for those words, but also silently realise why people would keep on living for them.

So it doesn’t happen like you think it will, but when you wake up thirty years later with John’s drool dripping onto your chin, you know that the only thing that matters is this; You, being wherever John is.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading to you, specifically, you lovely human! If you're here and you liked it if you liked it if you like, then why don't you leave a comment, too, and make my little heart swell with joy?


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